Indonesian Literature - Blurred Distinctions

Blurred Distinctions

The languages spoken (and part of them written) in the Indonesian Archipelago number over a thousand, and for that reason alone it is impracticable to survey their entire literary production in one article. Since the thought of a national Indonesian language only struck root as recently as the 1920s, this means that emphasis in the present article is put on the twentieth century.

At the same time, such a choice leaves a number of distinctions open. Major factors which make for a blurring of distinctions are:

• the difficulty of distinguishing between Malay and Indonesian

Even in the 1930s, Malay was the lingua franca of the Archipelago, but was also used widely outside it, while a national Indonesian language was still in a state of development. Thus, it is often difficult to ascertain where Malay leaves off and Indonesian begins. Nor is it possible to understand the development of Indonesian literature without study of the older Malay which it reacted against, and whose tradition it continued.

• mutual influence between regional languages and their literatures.

A work which appears in one Indonesian language may be found in a variant form in one or more others, especially when such literature has been part of the tradition for a long time.

• the problem of distinguishing between oral and written literature

Oral literature is, of course, assessed by other means than written manifestations, and field-work is one of these means. However, in the written literature, too, poetry may have been recorded which had originated as oral literature.